But she would ride Lethe to-night. The other horses were too comfortable. They served to irritate the bandit passions, not to subdue them. She panted for some one, something, to break to her will.
Lethe felt that there was a passion that night riding her; a passion that far surpassed her own. Womanlike, she decided to arbitrate. She would wait until this all-powerful passion burned itself out; then she could afford to safely agitate her own. It would not have grown less in the necessary interim. So, much to Sue's surprise, the filly was as gentle as the proverbial lamb.
As she turned for home, Waterbury rode out of the deepening shadows behind her. He had left the colonel at his breeding-farm. Waterbury and Sue rode in silence. The girl was giving all her attention to her thoughts. What was left over was devoted to the insistent mouth of Lethe, who ever and anon tested the grip on her bridle-rein; ascertaining whether or not there were any symptoms of relaxation or abstraction.
It is human nature to grow tired of being good. Waterbury's better nature had been in the ascendancy for over a week. He thought he could afford to draw on this surplus balance to his credit. He was riding very close to Sue. He had encroached, inch by inch, but her oblivion had not been inclination, as Waterbury fancied. He edged nearer. As she did not heed the steal, he took it for a grant. We fit facts to our inclination. The animal arose mightily in him. In stooping to avoid an overhanging branch he brushed against her. The contact set him aflame. He was hungrily eyeing her profile. Then in a second, he had crushed her head to his shoulder, and was fiercely kissing her again and again—lips, hair, eyes; eyes, hair, lips.
“There!” he panted, releasing her. He laughed foolishly, biting his nails. His mouth felt as if roofed with sand-paper. His face was white, but not as white as hers.
She was silent. Then she drew a handkerchief from her sleeve and very carefully wiped her lips. She was absolutely silent, but a pulse was beating—beating in her slim throat. The action, her silence, inflamed Waterbury. He made to crush her waist with his ravenous arm. Then, for the first time, she turned slowly, and her narrowed eyes met his. He saw, even in the gloom. Again he laughed, but the onrushing blood purpled his neck.
Desperation came to help him brave those eyes—came and failed. He talked, declaimed, avowed—grew brutally frank. Finally he spoke of the mortgage he held, and waited, breathing heavily, for the answer. There was none.
“I suppose it's some one else, eh?” he rapped out, red showing in the brown of his eyes.
Silence. He savagely cut the gelding across the ears, and then checked its answering, maddened leap. The red deepened in Sue's cheek—two red spots, the flag of courage.
“It's this nephew of Major Calvert's,” added Waterbury. He lost the last shred of common decency he could lay claim to; it was caught up and whirled away in the tempest of his passion. “I saw him to-day, on my way to the track. He didn't see me. When I knew him his name was Garrison—Billy Garrison. I discharged him for dishonesty. I suppose he sneaked home to a confiding uncle when the world had kicked him out. I suppose they think he's all right, same as you do. But he's a thief. A common, low-down—”